A New Pip-Boy
by Crocodilefan
Summary: This is a section from my multiverse fanfic 'The Alchemist Chronicles' about a team that travels the multiverse fighting evil. I do not upload in chronological order, sorry for any confusion that causes for anyone who actually reads this
1. Chapter 1

The super mutant behemoth charged, its weapon, a giant street lamp looked like a giant golf club.

"Spread out, cherry tap him!", Mizore yelled. The team scattered into the South Vegas ruins. The group spent the next half hour taking various potshots then running for cover in the concrete and waiting for another team member to draw its attention. Holographic cubes hit the wall the behemoth was standing next to, Alan had missed, he then proceeded to miss three more times as it drew closer to him, his aim was always atrocious, even with V.A.T.S. helping him, which he had once again forgotten to use. Just as it had gotten within a hundred feet of him came a sonic bark from Roxie, the soundwaves slamming into its back and causing burns. The super mutant changed his target and chased the dog that was luckily able to easily outmaneuver it in the ruins. As it ran between the skeletal buildings, laser beams shot from one of the windows, the mutant began pounding on the concrete in an attempt to tear the building itself down to get to Hac inside. Mizore stepped out into its path 300 feet away, the ground beneath its feet rapidly cooled and encased them in thick ice. As it stood stuck she peppered it with hits from her Maliwan Artic Frostfire. The behemoth screamed in pain from the cold and tore at its feet, breaking them from the ice, but losing several toes in the process, and continued to bleed rapidly. It charged at Mizore screaming more manically as it went, and passed in front of an alley where Huey was waiting. Huey held two Uzis, one in each hand, each had been modded to hold a magazine four and a half feet long, and he unlike Alan had remembered to use V.A.T.S., he shot a perfect stream of bullets straight into the behemoth's center of mass, unfortunately, these bullets were not very big, and did not leave as much damage as one might imagine, the behemoth, now chasing down Huey, easily caught up and swung his club right at his sending him a good 150 feet. It was at this point Zone, jumping from the rooftops keysword in hand, stuck the landing, cleaving the behemoth's head in half and putting the beast down for good. She jumped off the falling giant's soldiers and ran over to Huey where the rest of the team already was. Mizore was applying a stimpack.

"I'm alright guys really", he was saying as she ran up.

"Are you sure, you got hit pretty dang hard?", Alan asked. A beam of light from Hac's eye washed over him.

"No damage to biological functions found he is lucky", Hac said.

"My aura took most of the blow, but my pip-boy is smashed", he held up his left arm to show his Pimp-boy 3 Billion model, was completely fubar, with a shattered screen, broken off dials, and completely busted open casing, exposing several wires some of which were now torn, and computer boards, thankfully undamaged.

"Well, you guys know what this means?", there was a long pause, as it was quite evident, none of them did, "We're, going on a shopping trip, TO THE CITADEL!", he shouted.

It was a long journey, travelling across the wasteland to the rift that led to the Franchia rift, from there they had to take a tram car back to M-E-Earth gate, from there, it was a shuttle ride to the citadel, finally docking and exiting the craft. From there they had to go through Zakera Ward security screening, they were going to be stopped and questioned, they all knew it.

"You guys can't bring those weapons in here, and we don't allow dogs", the C-Sec officer said blankly.

"Check my security clearance", Alan said, "I am Alan Mist, serial number 06-200m here is the paperwork for myself, and here is the paper work for my team.

"This says you were a member of Commander Shepard's team, how come I've never heard of you?", he asked skeptically, and with a hint of snark.

"I joined her crew after the Reapers had already been defeated, I was also only part of her crew for six months; you won't see me in me history books, at least none in _this_ universal plane, I still work very closely with the crew of the Normandy."

"Interlopers from other worlds now need additional verification, paperwork, you don't have it. And what you do have says nothing about carrying weapons, and as I said dogs", the C-Sec officer was cut off.

"Check my security clearance.", Alan said.

"Yes, it says Spectre-level, but they have no such clearance", he said in regards to the other five team members.

"Spectres can arm their crew mem", now it was Alan's turn to be cut off.

"You are not a Spectre, you have "Spectre-level" clearance and that applies only to you", his face was becoming more stern. Alan shrugged and motioned to his teammates.

"Weapon systems can not be re moved from my suit plat form", Hac said, only partially lying as the tools and maintenance necessary to customize his shell were back at base.

"It is an inalienable right to arm oneself, for personal defense against threats to body and liberty", came Huey who had the had number of weapons in his jacket alone.

"I physically cannot leave my key, it just kinda follows me", Zone said in reference to her key sword that was now shrunk down into the palm of her hand.

"I honestly couldn't give less of a shit, I could kill everyone in this room using only my ice powers", this statement by Mizore caused everyone in the room, even her teammates to look at her, "hypothetically", she finished.

"Look, rules are rules, and If I break them for you, everybody will want me to break the rules for them", he said exasperated.

"Everyone already does, the difference is we aren't just talk", Zone interjected,

"What sort of business are you five up to?", he asked.

"We're here on pleasure actually, and there's six", Alan corrected.

"I will once again remind you that dogs are not allowed on Zakera Ward", the C-Sec officer was growing more exasperated.

"She's a service dog", Huey said.

"Oh yeah, and which of you is blind?", he asked feeling that he had finally found some grain of leverage.

"She's saved thousands of lives and even stopped even more terrorists, is that not enough of a service for you?", Zone asked. The C-Sec officer was getting more and more annoyed, he laid his head on his desk. By this point a small crowd of other C-Sec officers had gathered to witness what was unfolding, a junior officer walked over to him.

"Sir, they've been cleared, I received word from the Tower clerks' office", without even lifting his head, he made the waving motion for them to go through, past security. They all walked past the scanners.

"Every time", Alan sighed.

"We do attract a lot of attention, he was just doing his job", Zone said, Roxie barked in response.

"You're right, he must have been a cat person", Huey responded to Roxie, understanding what her she meant in the way only members of team control could.

"I do not truust cat people", Hac commented.

"Also, you were kinda scary Mi", Zone said referring to ice powers comment. Mizore only shrugged in response.

"I guess I'll take Huey to Saronis Applications, we'll meet back here after we've finished, y'all have fun", Alan and Huey began walking away leaving the other four which then all parted their separate ways.


	2. Chapter 2

Saronis Applications had recently renovated their store, but it was in the same place as Alan remembered it. The "retro" style of stores was making a comeback with open space shops, and employees behind counters that actually sold things rather than a terminal. One could only speculate the marketing reasons behind the change back to what seemed to be an outdated method of consumerism. It was for whatever reason, working, as there was already a que of five people already standing in the small shop, perhaps they were extraverts that needed human interaction to feel validated. In any case it was kind of nice to see that personal attention and professionalism had not completely gone extinct from the workplace. They even did repairs, now. The old "I'm Commander Shepard, and this is my favorite store on the citadel" ad played as they walked through the door. Alan spied the old salarian (old by salarian standards anyhow), he recognized him from the last visit, when he had upgraded his Pip-Boy.

"Good to see you again, Sheltic, remember me?", Alan asked.

"How could I forget, you brought me that otherworld tech, back before other worlds were really even a thing", Sheltic replied.

Alan's organic arm was suddenly wearing a Pip-Boy, but holographic, like an Omni-tool. It's light thick and un-transparent, it was not aesthetically different from any other Omni-tool with the exception of its shape, that being a Robco Pip-Boy 3k model, and it's color, a lime green. It had a fabrication module capable of producing an Omni-blade, and a scanner, but aside from those had no additional features beyond what the 3k model had. "And it works great", Alan smiled. Huey just sort of stood there, appraising the situation.

"Of course it works great, I built it, don't you think I should know", Sheltic said flatly, not taking the compliment for what it was, "Something you needed?"

"Mine got busted, I think all the data boards are still intact, can you fix mine up the same way you did his?", Huey asked, laying his Pip-Boy on the counter.

"It's basically the same model as mine was; only the casing and sound card were different", Alan added.

"Yeah, everything looks like it's here, I can have it done in six hours, standard fee", he then went and retrieved the paperwork, he used the standard Omni-tool repair paperwork, there wasn't any official ones for this type of job. The two finished their paperwork.

"Now what are we supposed to do for six hours?" Huey asked.

"We're in a giant alien mall, what else?", Alan answered with a knowing smile.

"To the food-court", they said in unison.


	3. Chapter 3

The citadel is a large labyrinthine structure, to those unsure of how to follow the symbols; it can become easy to get lost on such a large station. Without knowing exactly how, Zone found herself on the Presidium commons. White towers all around reached up from floor to outside the atmosphere, the tops of which seemed to be under construction, around which small craft flew around at blurring speeds. A small pond lay underneath bride walkways stretching back and forth to their respective sides. An asari in official looking garments, sat at a desk. Zone walked up to her intending to ask for directions.

"Excuse me, I think I'm kind of a bit lost, it's my first time on the Citadel, and this place is so big", she said.

"Yes, welcome Zone-tan correct?", The asari said with a smile.

"You know my…you know who I am?", Zone asked, suddenly startled and suspicious.

'it's my job to keep track of all the notable people that come through here, your team made quite an impression on C-Sec, I hope you six like attention", her voice remained ever pleasant.

"Not really me personally, Alan loves it though, he's always monologuing, I think he's kind of nuts", Zone sighed. Sometimes she really wished he didn't make such a big scene out of everything, but everyone had their idiosyncrasies. His was making sure that everyone knew that _he_ was The Alchemist, and that he wanted respect. Hers was…she once again realized that she didn't know very much about her own self, "Where am I exactly?"

"This is the Presidium commons; you're just outside embassies, down the path to your left, you'll find the citadel tower, I trust your group has official business there?", the asari asked, apparently not having heard all of the details of the incident with C-Sec, as she had originally came off as knowing.

"Actually, it was a spur of the moment shopping trip to be honest, and we needed some equipment repaired", Zone said, finally warming up the woman,

"Well, in any case, Welcome. If you have any further questions, Avina would be happy to help.", The receptionist motioned to the terminal with holographic woman. Curious, Zone walked over to it. The hologram was nothing special, no hard light, just a basic 3D projection in the shape of an asari, who was humorously, not wearing any clothes.

"Greetings I am Avina", the hologram said.

"Hullo", Zone said with a short wave that she knew it couldn't see, "Why are the embassies unfinished?"

"Due to the scientific event some are calling the singularity, various universal planes were discovered by the research teams, now the galaxy is filled with many more races seeking to apply for embassies on the citadel, few of these candidate races qualify for such embassies, however, it is predicted that several embassies will open within the coming years", Zone processed what it was telling her and walked away toward the pond in the center of the presidium, the pond was lined with statues, many she recognized as crew members of the Normandy. The pond was calm and clear, she was disappointed, she much preferred the koi ponds with the giant goldfish the kind you're not supposed to feed but everyone does. But the pond was still aside from a fountain some six meters away. She sat for some time until she was called out to by a familiar voice.

"Hello human, what are chances of seeing a familiar face in all the Multiverse", Marcus, the leader of Jacobstown stood behind her, his visage reflected from behind her in the surface of the water in front of her; she stood up and turned to him.

"It really is quite the coincidence, seeing you again, why here of all places?", Zone asked. She was beginning to take greater note of all these incredulous cosmic coincidences that seemed to make up all her history that, of which she could remember anyway, of all the people who would end up on the receiving end of one of her tentacles, would be the same one who purged the dark energy from her soul. Coincidence. Of all the places he would leave her, would be the same place where that dark energy would once again escape and assume the form of him. Coincidence. Of all the people from all the different universes who would be chosen to join and help him. Coincidence. When they happen one at a time, they become easy to ignore and dismiss, as events unfold, they feel natural, but nothing about what they were and what they did was natural. If fate was a thing, was free will real, and who was writing fate? "What brings you here?"

"I had scheduled a meeting with the council two years in advance; luckily time runs quicker here, over the matter of recognition, of super mutants, ghouls, and nightkin. My plea for an embassy was denied on the grounds that since we're born human then mutated, we don't constitute a race", he said forlorn.

"I'm sorry to hear that, but if, you can't have children, doesn't that mean you're still just human?", she mused.

"We can't give birth in the traditional sense, neither can Geth however, I am certain of the fact that there will always be super mutants, and they will always need someone to show them how to not be monsters", Marcus seemed downright depressed.

"But there's no more FEV right? There shouldn't be any new mutants being made. Except…."she paused.

"Something on your mind?" he asked, curious as to her sudden change in expression.

"There was a giant behemoth, south of New Vegas, Alan said he had never seen one that big, that there shouldn't be a behemoth in the Mojave, that aside from a few rogues, almost all super mutants were concentrated in the mountains and none were that hostile or got that big"

"I've seen behemoth's before, they're not common, and he's right, practically unheard of in the Mojave. If a behemoth was seen in Vegas, it came from the east", he said concerned, "If a behemoth really did show up in the Mojave, I must get back to Jacobstown as soon as possible, I need to handle how they hear this information", and with that he left, calling over his shoulder, "Goodbye human".

"But I'm not…." , her voice trailed off unsure of itself.


End file.
